It’s all over… All that last minute planning and worrying and it was over in a flash.

I’ve just returned from the annual Nordic Games Conference in Malmo Sweden. I had the honor of being invited to sit on a panel of world renowned character designers all of which seemed much better qualified to be there then I did. I held my own so to speak which I am quite proud of. My fellow panelists included Ryosuke Tei, Creative Director, Furi Furi, Ryuuta Ueda, Art Director, Sega and Alex Taini, Art Director of Ninja Theory. Everyone was just so nice, really down to earth which was cool. It was a show and tell for which I was asked to give apresentation of my work and this was to be followed by a discussion on East meets west cultural differences in character design.

I flew out on the Tuesday with my best friend and fellow concept artist Peter Hentze. Pete was supposed to join me on the panel but a last minute change in the schedule meant that they only had one place left on the panel so I volunteered to do it. We were met at the Airport by representatives of the Nordic Games conference, as well as a couple of fellow speakers. Jasmin, a cool and totally crazy German woman who owns and runs Pixel-Tamer, and a blond haired guy who’s name I can’t remember. We stayed at the same hotel as Jasmin who turned out to be a veteran of the Games conference scene, which was great because she took us under her wing. It was cool she introduced us to so many people everyone seemed to know her.

The first evening we attended a Speakers Party at a building called Turning Torso, it’s very famous in the Nordic regions, and with good reason it’s the strangest building I’ve ever been in.
Inside we went to the top floor the penthouse which was on the 54th floor, my ears popped twice in the elevator. The views from that height are astounding and the place was decorated in such a way that it reminded me of a Bond villains head quarters. So this was where we had the party so we could all get to know each other before the talks.

The following day was the day of the presentation and after very little sleep and too much beer I was feeling all the worse for my big day. I had a rotten hangover and bloodshot eyes with no sunglasses to cover up my alcohol abuse from the previous night. The one good thing about feeling so bad was it does tend to take the edge of the nerves. We got our passes the night before from the Turning Torso so we went straight to the convention. I was able to get a look at the conference hall in which I was doing my presentation , thankfully it was a bit smaller than what I’d been imagining(Wembley stadium). I attended a lecture in the same room to get a feel for what it would be like with an audience, and it just made me feel even more nervous. I was set to go on straight after lunch and I had really lost my appetite at this point so I did a bit of last minute prep instead.

Finally the moment had come and I was really feeling the nerves then I met Alex a fellow panelist who was unable to attend the previous nights party. I asked him if he had ever done a talk or presentation before and he said no. I don’t know why, but that made me feel so much better, I wasn’t the only Noob.

As it turned out the talk went great and it was all over just as I was getting into my stride. After that I cut loose and got very drunk and mixed and networked with loads of cool and funny people. I’m really glad I decided to do this.